Ethics Committees, Due Process, and Compassion

We believe that quality standards for ethics consultations may improve the consultation process. Dr. La Puma's work contributes to the literature in establishing standards of quality for individual consultants. We encourage further debate on these standards, as well as on similar guidelines for consultations done by ethics committees.

We share Dr. Finucane's concerns about the development of a consultation process that is too burdensome to benefit the patients it is designed to protect. We also agree that an adversarial model serves no one, least of all the patient. It is only when physicians, patients, and families are unable to resolve complex treatment questions that ethics committees have a role.